[Info-vax] up-and-coming 35th anniversary of VMS / OpenVMS

[John Wallace]

On Aug 31, 7:08 pm, glen herrmannsfeldt <g... at ugcs.caltech.edu> wrote:
> Richard B. Gilbert <rgilber... at comcast.net> wrote:
>
> (snip)
>
> > I'd make a small bet that H-P won't even notice.  You need to remember
> > that H-P is an ink and toner company these days.  Their attention
> > follows the money rather than the technology!
>
> News (NPR) this morning is that HP reduced the price of the
> tablet to $99 to clear them out.  They sold so well that they
> will now produce more to sell at that price.
>
> -- glen


"Industry sources" (e.g. iSuppli, the folks who strip things to see
how much the bits cost) seem to think that there's a substantial loss
being made on the Touchpads at the prices they've sold at this week
(component cost ~$300, they say in [1]). Making more to sell at a loss
would be at least as sensible as most recent HP decisions.

There clearly was some market out there for the Touchpad, though
whether it goes much further beyond this week's small proportion of
early adopter geeks seeking massively discounted one-off bargains (and
the inevitable few market traders seeking to make a few dollars by
buying and immediately reselling at auction down the flea market to
those who think they missed out) is a different kettle of fish.

I can't see that the certified Microsoft dependent corporate IT market
which is a major part of HP's focus has ever had much interest in
these, and whilst HP may be a player at retail with printers and ink,
the places that sell those printers are often also somewhat Microsoft
dependent. And this didn't come with a Windows logo, which may just
mean that the Microsoft contribution towards joint marketing ("[HP]
recommends Windows 7" etc gets the advertiser a kickback from
Microsoft) may have been at risk.

[1] http://www.isuppli.com/Teardowns/News/Pages/HP-TouchPad-Carries-$318-Bill-of-Materials.aspx